We are back with the witty answers from the DRB founder, Avi Abrams along with another wonderful announcement for DRB lovers: DRB has opened their online store considering the requests of its readers with a line of branded gift merchandise featuring fascinating steampunk-oriented and whimsical original art. So, don’t forget to check-out their store once you are done reading here. Enjoy!

1) Sylvie: When and how you came up with the idea of DarkRoastedBlend? How did you coined the term, “Dark Roasted Blend“? Are you into full-time blogging? If yes, when did you realize it’s getting really big?

Avi: My wife and I love coffee, so during our trip to Europe we tried various cups in the most atmospheric of places. European coffee is essentially espresso and they drink it mostly black, i. e. without cream. “Dark Roasted Blend” means something very intense and exciting, a shot of energy and source of thrill that everyone needs in their full lifestyle. We love to travel, and wherever we go we seek out memorable cafes with good espresso... and we try to write our articles in the same thrilling way. We blog full-time, take care of our two wonderful sons, 2 and 8, and still find time to travel extensively. We also love to read and go to movies... so this ensures that we don’t have any time left to watch TV, for example.

2) Katherine: Dark Roasted Blend features in the Top 50 Blogger Powered Blogs but if given a chance would you like to move away from Movable Type and host your blog on your domain?

Avi: Sure, however it’s been good going with Google (Blogger) so far. This allows me to concentrate on creating content, not battle servers and hosting companies. I did have to write the template code basically from scratch to achieve this custom look, so it helps that I’ve designed a few sites in the past.

3) Molly: The main problem bloggers struggle with is increasing the user base. What do you think helped you the most in building such a vast reader base since early on with Dark Roasted Blend?

Avi: We had some great tips from our readers, that helped us to find some amazing facts and subjects to write about. But mostly, DRB publishes whatever deeply moves and excites us, and we do it frequently enough to hold the reader’s interest. Our “Dangerous Roads of the World” on-going series, as well as unique futurism category helped a lot to grow the site, which is really only 2 years old.

4) Kelly: You have a wonderful design to go with your theme of weird and wonderful things and its one of the nicely designed blogs on the internet. Did you do the design on your own?

Avi: Yes, and it is still the work in progress. We just came out with updated branding and an interesting steampunk look (see it here and in our gift store) My background includes work in the computer graphics industry, so I am never satisfied with the final product - and like to tweak things endlessly, which is a common problem with artists, I hear.

5) Jamie: Your blog features awesome compilations of weird and unique stuff. From where do you get all this information?

Avi: Amazingly, a lot comes from our readers - we have a few really fantastic diggers of all things fantasique (mostly from Europe and Japan), plus we know a few languages other than English, and it helps to hunt for stuff not covered by popular sites, or completely unknown to our American audience.

6) Ted: Dark Roasted Blend is more about wonderful compilations of your weird and unique subjects, pretty much like TrendHunter does in Trends. Do you think fun blogging scored over serious blogging with opinionated views and reviews. Do you plan to open up DRB to your community aka TrendHunter in the future?

Avi: We’d love to open the community, in fact this is in the works and should happen in a month or so. As for opinionated views, I think we are pretty opinionated (just read some of the science fiction reviews I put out on our DRB SciFi site). Running an extremely popular site such as Dark Roasted Blend requires that I tone down some of the rhetoric, for example, we try to stay away from religion and politics. But it’s a great question about value of serious blogging today. I think it’s tied to the shorter and shorter attention spans that internet readershare, which is really a shame. I would say, step away from your computer and go read a book, or take a walk in an awesome silence of a forest. Life can’t (even remotely) be replicated by a computer screen.

7) Steve: With the huge success of Dark Roasted Blend, do you plan to expand to other niche areas?

Avi: We run science fiction book-lovers website already, and are interested in acquiring help to run the travel site. There’s only 24 hours in a day, however, and raising the family takes priority.

8) Jack: DRB ranks in Top 100 Technorati Blogs but do you think any blog could ever replicate the success of Engadget, or Gizmodo or will they remain untouched in the future to come?

Avi: We have our niche, so we’re in no way competing with giants, such as Neatorama or Boing Boing. As long as there are readers for what we got to say and show, we’d be happy to provide it. Ambition is a good thing, but being a medium-sized site has its advantages, too. Once you get into the “stratosphere” the game changes significantly.

9. Ron: If asked to give some tips to the new bloggers as to “How to make your blog successful” in a way other than ProBlogger or any other blog serving tips to the newbies, what would they be?

Avi: You’ve heard someone say “Follow your heart”, but this is essentially what’s it all about. Write what you’re passionate about, I mean, what you think and dream about all day. For me it was my love for science fiction and fantasy, and this is how I started blogging. I would say “Be a maverick” but that line is taken already.

10) Team: Tell us about your five favorite reads in your niche?

Avi: I love to visit Neatorama and Presurfer on a regular basis, as well as DeputyDog and WebUrbanist. Sometimes I just go through the blogroll links on DRB and visit all of them (I prefer to visit actual sites instead of RSS feeds). Sometimes I let my body visit Digg while my mind is asleep. You know.

11) Team: Your views on BornRich and Instablogs network?

Avi: You guys have interesting stuff, thank you for inviting me to speak here. BornRich is a great name for a site, good enough to build some philosophy around it. Considering yourself “born rich” certainly helps in our crashing economy.

RAPIDFIRE ROUND:-

1) Most weird gadget
a). Alien shaped mouse 2). Ear Wax Camera/Cleaner c). Computer Controlled Coffee Roaster d). computer-controlled vibrator?

Avi: Miniature wedding chapel for hamsters. Does not exist yet? Well, somebody’s gotta make it.

2) Most adventurous thing you have done
a. bungee jumping b. starting book of joe c. mountain climbing d. got married e. Other?

Avi: Traveling across Siberia in a train full of Americans, fighting off mafia along the way.

3) Any three Web comics you love to read?

Avi: Dilbert. Dilbert. Dilbert.

4) Movies you would love to star in
a.) Star Trek b.) Indiana Jones c.) Terminator d.) Fight Club e.) Other?

Avi: The movie that plays in my head when I read “Lord of the Rings” (and it’s not Peter Jackson’s version).

Finally, we thank Avi for giving us such a wonderful coffee time and wish him and the whole DRB team “All the Best” for their future endeavors.